Last November I made the trip to Shenzhen, China. I wanted to find out how inventors and hardware startup companies develop a physical product, and on top of that, make thousands to sell.
My first impression of Shenzhen was that it truly was the city of makers. Rather than just being an afterthought, it’s something that’s fully ingrained into the city life, from the advertising billboards selling capacitors to the beautiful, LED lightshows at night of ocean life and flowers that dance across multiple buildings in a synchronised show.
The tour was organised by Hardworx, featuring 9 days, 12 factories, 2 accelerators and the famous electronics markets. If you’ve ever enjoyed ‘How it’s made’ on Youtube, seeing the live action version by visiting factories is great.
Most people think that you need to have a fully formed product before you look to china for mass production, but this isn’t the case. Lots of factories provide OEM and ODM, the technical way of saying both product design and manufacture. You can just have a vague idea and get the masters of the trade to design and make it for you. It might also be better to design your invention while staying in China too.
Prototyping a complex product involves lots of iteration, which can be time consuming and expensive to make. However, when in a city of people who make things, it’s much faster and cheaper to get the specialists to make the parts in Shenzhen. This can really make all the difference, especially when working on new products that require a fast entry to market to beat the competition.
If the idea and the team is good, accelerators like HAX and Shenzhen Valley Ventures can invest upwards of $150K into your team to build the product in exchange for company equity.
The factories were also a real eye opener to see a product coming together slowly. Some factories were almost fully automated, while others were only just getting started with robot help. We often forget how much work goes into making the complex appliances and gadgets we take for granted.
It was also very frustrating to see how much effort goes into making beautiful packaging at a large print factory. Shiny gels and hand-screen printed for luxury effects. Paper for wax coating is hand-fed into specialised machines. All for something that we look at once and throw away so quickly.
The electronics markets were very cool. I had to buy a second suitcase to fit all the new gadgets and parts I bought. You could buy LED strip by the metre, and ‘jellybean’ essential electronics components in very small or bulk amounts.
I bought a new soldering iron, 2 meters of fibre optic fabric (project blog coming soon), a programmable LED Hologram Fan, 600 colour cycling LEDs, 50 rolls of copper tape and an LCD screen electronics microscope. I also bought a drone for my grandfather, which he loved.
One of the highlights of the trip was the China Hi-Tech Fair, a huge display of new tech and cute robots.
The tech that stole the show was the new flex screens. Huge crowds and western models holding the new flex screen phone.
The best part was enjoying this trip with an awesome gang of experienced makers with cool projects in the pipeline.
I’d definitely recommend this trip to anyone who is interested in Hardware, electronics and making. Looking forward to heading back in future!